Echoes Is A Game About Psychology & Mental Health

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It’s Mental Health Awareness Week here in the UK, so I thought I’d tell you about Echoes [official site] – a newly announced episodic exploration puzzle game that explores themes of psychology, mental health and the relationship between the two. I’m a sucker for games that strive to generate wider and nuanced conversation around sensitive issues. Echoes appears to be one such game AND it looks really pretty into the bargain. See:

Not too much to go on just yet, however episode one is named Diagnosis and will study the beginnings of the protagonist. The world you see up there apparently depicts sections of the character’s dreams, which is where the opening chapter introduces “mind break” – a unique mechanic that helps players overcome “challenging and alien” parts of said dreams.

Here’s the official word from Echoes developers Thermo-Dynamic Games:

“Echoes is an episodic game which explores psychology and mental health, it ties exploration gameplay with puzzles and features two distinctive visual styles based on the core narrative themes.

“The Narrative follows a patient’s journey through counselling and overcoming their mental issues. The story, unique blend of visuals and challenging gameplay will come together to create an unforgettable experience.”

I think this sounds really interesting and although not particularly keen on the episodic release model myself, the process of seeking help regarding mental health issues does tend to be one done in stages. Without sounding overly profound, this could in turn work well here, as the player attempts to uncover the protagonist’s story while exploring the key themes at the same time.

11 Comments

I left my office job and now I am receiving 89 Dollars hourly. How? I work over internet! My old work was making me unhappy, so I was forced to try something altered. Two years later…I can say my life is changed-completely for the betterr! Check it out what i do…

1″I left my office job and now I am receiving 89 Dollars hourly. How? I work over internet! My old work was making me unhappy, so I was forced to try something altered. Two years latter…I can say my life is changed-completely for the better! Check it out what i do…v..

My first job out of High School was at St Paul and over the next 5 years Iearned so very much. Seeing the hospital torn down tears a small piece of my heart out. The Daughters of Charity and the doctors and staff of St Paul Hospital will always be with me.

My first job out of High School was at St Paul and over the next 5 years Iearned so very much. Seeing the hospital torn down tears a small piece of my heart out. The Daughters of Charity and the doctors and staff of St Paul Hospital will always be with me.

I came expecting eight typically intelligent comments on RPS about this interesting little game, that bravely tackles mental health issues. Instead, there’s a meeting of spambots, with no mention of the game whatsoever – what a shame (a shame that whatever defences a web-site puts up, the spambots will always find a way round it).

As far as the game goes, I just wish I could borrow the “mind break” mechanic for myself in real life. With my mental illness, I get some pretty vivid dreams/nightmares – not sure if they mean anything though they’re often very symbolic (dragons, dogs, religion). I’ll be interested to see how this developer tackles this aspect in their game, and how their character’s illness/recovery progresses over the course of the planned episodes.

They always mean something. They often make deep statements about who you are and what happened the day before. Not trivial things like “I ate pasta at the restaurant” but “that person looked at me and I felt strange”. The whole dream will live around the “strange feeling” of the day and will use various symbols to express it. Just like totems or ancient egypt gods, one image or symbol isn’t enough to picture what they want, so various symbols will be used and often merged. I suggest you read interpretation of dreams by S. Freud and later any book by his disciple Jung.

Thank you for your thoughtful post DeadCanDance. I have tried interpreting some of my dream symbols but I’ve realised that, while some symbols have universal meanings, some only make sense when thought about in relation to yourself.

I actually have a book on dream symbology by Jung but I’ve not made any time to read it yet – I think, after reading your post, I will make some time to do so – thanks!